United States v. Yahya; forthcoming scholarship

Superseding indictment returned in Miami case involving export of dual-use goods to Iran, stemming from an investigation of the use of US-made goods in IEDs in Iraq.

From the press release:

A federal grand jury in Miami, FL, has returned a Superseding Indictment charging eight individuals and eight corporations in connection with their participation in conspiracies to export U.S.-manufactured commodities to prohibited entities and to Iran. The defendants are named in a thirteen (13) count Indictment – returned on Sept. 11, 2008 and unsealed today — that includes charges of conspiracy, violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the United States Iran Embargo, and making false statements to federal agencies in connection with the export of thousands of U.S. goods to Iran.

…

The Superseding Indictment alleges that the defendants purchased, and then illegally exported to ultimate buyers in Iran, numerous “dual use” commodities. “Dual-use” commodities are goods and technologies that have commercial application, but could also be used to further the military or nuclear potential of other nations and could be detrimental to the foreign policy or national security of the United States. In this regard, the Superseding Indictment alleges that the defendants caused the export of 120 field-programmable gate arrays, more than 5000 integrated circuits of varying types, approximately 345 Global Positioning Systems (“GPS”), 12,000 Microchip brand micro-controllers, and a Field Communicator. All of these items have potential military applications, including as components in the construction of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The charges announced today are the result of an extensive inter-agency investigation into the use of U.S.-made goods in the construction of IEDs and other explosive devices used against Coalition Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The defendants are charged with purchasing and causing the export of U.S. goods to Iran through middle countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, England, Germany, and Singapore. More specifically, the charges in the Indictment are as follows:

Count 1 of the Superseding Indictment charges defendants Yahya, Yaghmaei, Mayrow General Trading, Atlinx Electronics, Micatic General Trading, Majidco Micro Electronics, Al-Faris, and Neda Industrial Group with conspiracy to export goods to Iran and to defraud the United States, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Title 50, United States Code, Sections 1702 and 1705(a), the United States Iran Embargo, and the Export Administration Regulations, and Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.

Counts 2 through 5 charge defendants Yahya, Yaghmaei, Micatic, and Mayrow with exporting U.S. goods from the United States to Iran, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the United States Iran Embargo.

Counts 6 through 8 charge defendants Yahya, Yaghmaei, Majidco, Micatic, and Mayrow with making false statements in federally mandated shipping documents regarding the ultimate destination and use of the goods, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001(a)(2).

Count 9 charges defendants Yahya, Mayrow, Al-Faris, Ghandi, Gillardian, Mun, Nezhad, Rahzad, Seif, Eco Biochem, and Vast Solution with conspiracy to export goods to Iran, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Title 50 United States Code, Sections 1702 and 1705(a), the United States Iran Embargo, and the Export Administration Regulations, and to defraud the United States, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.

Counts 10 and 11 charge defendants Al-Faris, Seif, and Vast Solution with exporting U.S. goods from the United States to Iran, in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the United States Iran Embargo.

Counts 12 and 13 charge defendant Seif with making false statements by misrepresenting the ultimate destination and use of the goods on Federal Form BS-711 Statement By Ultimate Consignee and Purchaser, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001(a)(2).

On March 4, 2005, a car carrying Nicola Calipari and Andrea Carpani, members of the Italian Ministry of Intelligence, and Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist who had been taken hostage one month before and who had just been released and was on her way back to Italy, was traveling to the Baghdad Airport. The car was fired on by US forces from a checkpoint, killing Mr. Calipari and wounding Ms. Sgrena and Mr. Carpani.

As a result of this tragic event, a joint investigation occurred and but Italy and the United States could not agree on the results. The United States determined that the soldiers involved had acted appropriately. Italy disagreed and on February 7, 2007, Mario Lozano, an U.S. Army National Guardsman, was indicted by Italian prosecutors who declared that Lozano can be tried in absentia because the case was policial.

The trial occurred and the decision was announced on October 25th. Judge Spinaci ruled that the law of the flag, or the law of the soldier’s sending state, prevails over a claim of passive personality jurisdiction in a case like this. This paper analyzes Judge Spinaci’s decision and determines that he is correct. Absent another international agreement, the exercise of passive personality criminal jurisdiction over a combatant for combatant acts is inappropriate when the combatant’s sovereign is seized of the case. Rather, because the combatant is acting on behalf of the sovereign, any claim against the combatant should be resolved through political means.

U.S. law plainly forbids something called “torture.” Some writers even contend the ban on torture is foundational to the idea of the United States as a liberal democratic state committed to individual rights and the rule of law. The revelations of torture and other forms of mistreatment by U.S. forces at places such as Abu Ghraib thus undermine what these writers characterize as American leadership on human rights and call the nation’s identity into question.

Most readers will sympathize with these claims. This essay, by contrast, suggests that torture may be compatible with American values in practice and with the legal system we have constructed to serve those values. Put another way, many fear that the revelations of abuses committed in the war on terror put the U.S. at risk of becoming a torture nation. This essay explores the ways in which the U.S. is already a torture nation and suggests that being a torture nation could be as important a part of the U.S. legal and political system as the ban on torture.

To guide that exploration, I illustrate some of the ways in which past practice and mainstream legal doctrine provide a solid foundation for the abuses of the war on terror. The first part of this essay traces some of the history of torture and related forms of abuse in U.S. foreign policy, followed by a description of the law and practice of police and prison violence, and concluding with immigration. Part Two examines the interaction of U.S. and international law in the context of torture, primarily through a detailed examination of U.S. ratification of the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Part Three concludes the essay by drawing explicit connections between these precedents and the perceived excesses of the war on terror.

My goal is not to make a normative argument about the condition of U.S. law and practice. Nor am I suggesting that they are pernicious or evil. At most, I am arguing that the U.S. is an entirely typical modern state in its use of torture. I seek primarily to fix the distorted picture sketched by rhetorical responses to the abuses of the war on terror. The examples I offer are not themselves a complete picture, of course, but no account of U.S. law and practice relating to torture can be complete without them. Grappling with a more complex representation of how violence colors U.S. law and politics is difficult, but scholarly analysis of these issues requires the effort. What, if anything, readers do with the resulting picture is a question beyond the scope of this essay.

Violations of international humanitarian law are compensable by a state causing the violations. The roots of this obligation can be traced to Article 3 of Hague Convention IV, which states that a party to the conflict which violates the provisions of [international humanitarian law] shall . . . be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces. A similar rule is also contained in Protocol I Additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions.

In practice, the enforcement of this important provision of international humanitarian law has remained a matter of rarity, particularly in terms of civil – rather than criminal – liability. However, a recent exception is the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission in The Hague (the Claims Commission or the Commission). The Claims Commission was established pursuant to a peace agreement signed by Eritrea and Ethiopia in Algiers, Algeria, on December 12, 2000, ending a devastating war fought between the two countries from May 1998 to December 2000.

The Commission was charged with the duty of deciding, through binding arbitration, all claims by one party or citizens of that party against the other party for loss, damage, or injury resulting from violations of international law (mainly violations of international humanitarian law that occurred during the war). The Commission commenced its work in March 2001 and decided to consider the claims of the parties in two different phases of the proceedings: a liability phase and a damages phase. The Commissions rendered the final decisions of the liability phase on December 19, 2005. The damages phase is still being conducted, although no decisions have been rendered by the Commission to date as part of that phase. Thus, this Article exclusively focuses on the Commission’s work as it relates to the completed liability phase.

This brief note discusses the legal ramifications of the unilateral termination of occupation. The note seeks to characterize the moment of termination and examines the obligations of the occupant during (and possibly after) the termination process.

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